Clint Watson writes in  Facebook Like Button Count Inaccuracies:

The Facebook “like” buttons you see embedded on websites incorrectly report the number of “people” who “like” something. Specifically, the button can inflate the displayed count of people.  While this is fine when all you want to do is track some general level of “engagement” with a particular item, it was not accurate for the use I needed – counting each “like” as a vote in our BoldBrush Online painting competition.

What I needed is a way to get the number of actual people who “like” something.  And there is a way to retreive that information from Facebook, but it is often a different number from what is shown on the “like” button itself.

If you are a geek – here’s the bottom line of this post:

If you’re using the Facebook “Like” Button Social Plugin and you need an accurate count of the actual number of people who have clicked the “like” button, you can’t rely on the number reported by the button itself.  You need to retrieve your URL’s “fan count” number via Facebook’s Open Graph API.

Hat tip to Zach Seward for bringing this to my attention.

Recently I wrote about how a Los Angeles Police Dept. geocoding data glitch yielded inaccurate crime maps at LAPDcrimemaps.org and the database-powered network of hyperlocal sites, Everyblock.

On Apr. 8, Everyblock founder Adrian Holovaty blogged about the two ways his company is addressing the problem of inaccurate geodata.

1. Latitude/longitude crosschecking. “From now on, rather than relying blindly on our data sources’ longitude/latitude points, we cross-check those points with our own geocoding of the address provided. If the LAPD’s geocoding for a particular crime is significantly off from our own geocoder’s results, then we won’t geocode that crime at all, and we publish a note on the crime page that explains why a map isn’t available. (If you’re curious, we’re using 375 meters as our threshold. That is, if our own geocoder comes up with a point more than 375 meters away from the point that LAPD provides, then we won’t place the crime on a map, or on block/neighborhood pages.)
2. Surfacing ungeocoded data. “Starting today, wherever we have aggregate charts by neighborhood, ZIP or other boundary, we include the number, and percentage, of records that couldn’t be geocoded. Each location chart has a new “Unknown” row that provides these figures. Note that technically this figure includes more than nongeocodable records — it also includes any records that were successfully geocoded but don’t lie in any neighborhood. For example, in our Philadelphia crime section, you can see that one percent of crime reports in the last 30 days are in an ‘unknown’ neighborhood; this means those 35 records either couldn’t be geocoded or lie outside any of the Philadelphia neighborhood boundaries that we’ve compiled.”

These strategies could — and probably should — be employed by any organization publishing online maps that rely on government or third-party geodata.

Holovaty’s post also includes a great plain-language explanation of what geodata really is and how it works in practical terms. This is the kind of information that constitutes journalism 101 in the online age.

(NOTE: I originally published this post in Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

plasticlogic

What might a larger-screen e-reader look like? Here's what Plastic Logic plans to release later this year. Whether Amazon will follow suit remains to be seen.

Over the weekend, while I was reading the Wall Street Journal on my Kindle e-reader (I pay $10/month for that subscription), I noticed this headline: Amazon Is Developing Bigger-Screen Kindle. I found the article interesting for several reasons — including that the sole source for the headline’s claim is the unnamed group, “people who said they have seen a version of the device.” I was even more surprised to read that “the new Kindle could debut before the 2009 holiday shopping season, they said.” That’s pretty damn ambitious.

…WSJ.com also noted that an Amazon spokesman “declined to comment on what he called ‘rumors or speculation.’”

Hmmm… could this be a replay of the rumors of an Apple tablet computer that have been recurring for years? (Thanks for the reminder of that, Ron Miller.)

A larger-format Kindle would indeed be an attractive product to many consumers. It would be even more appealing to news organizations that are already selling (or are considering selling) Kindle subscriptions to their content. The Kindle’s current screen size significantly constrains formatting and excludes advertising — and thus news revenue potential for this device.

When considering this story’s conspicuously scanty sourcing, I noticed that this article did not acknowledge that the Wall Street Journal — and every other news org selling Kindle subscriptions — stands to benefit financially from the availability of a larger-size Kindle. In other words, the Journal used a definitively-worded headline to amplify an unconfirmed rumor that, if true, might eventually increase its e-reader revenue stream. And this claim has been widely repeated.

Of course, Amazon’s alleged forthcoming Kindle is not the only emerging larger e-reader option…

I reported earlier that Hearst says they’re working on their own e-reader. And Plastic Logic has been signing up content partners (including news content) for its larger-format e-reader, which Plastic Logic says it will start rolling out later this year. But Amazon is a very strong consumer brand, and the Kindle has consumer market traction — significant potential advantages to publishers seeking e-reader revenues sooner rather than later.

Also, the WSJ tech site All Things D reported April 2 that Rupert Murdoch mentioned that News Corp (which owns the Journal) is investing in an as-yet-unspecified large-format e-reader. Peter Kafka wrote:

“I checked in with a News Corp. spokesperson, who confirmed that I hadn’t been hallucinating: News Corp. is indeed in ‘exploratory’ talks about making an investment in a company working on e-reader technologies.”

So: Could this Kindle story be an attempt by the Journal to nudge Amazon in a favorable business direction? The possibility is strong enough that I’m personally very skeptical about the WSJ article’s key claim. Either a more nuanced headline or stronger sourcing would have made this story less of an ethical gray area.

AM I A WSJ SUBSCRIBER, OR NOT?

…This Kindle-WSJ connection is the kind of thing I love to point out on Twitter. But to tweet it, I needed a link to the story. (You can’t tweet web links directly from the Kindle.) So I had to look up the story on WSJ.com. There, the full text of this particular story is available only to Journal subscribers — which makes me hesitant to link to it, since most people would not be able to read it.

But I found the context surrounding this article intriguing enough (and considered that I probably have at least some fellow paying Journal subscribers in my Twitter posse)… so I thought it might be worth making an exception and providing a link to subscriber-wall content.

I tried to log in to the site as a subscriber, to check that the full article was indeed available there. Guess what? WSJ.com doesn’t think I’m a subscriber — even though I pay for this publication on my Kindle. That’s right: currently there is no way for paying Kindle subscribers to log in to WSJ.com in order to gain access to their full Web content. In fact, the Journal’s own subscription page currently doesn’t even mention the Kindle as an option.

Hmph. Maybe the circulation, business development, and editorial departments at the Journal should sit down together and talk about this one.

Oh, and to add another layer to this onion… Recently I noted in Tidbits that WSJ.com’s managing editor Bill Grueskin and former Dow Jones CEO Peter Kann made some amusing comments about how the site’s initial paid-content strategy was “ignorant.” Seems that under News Corp. management, this misguided thinking continues…

However, many news organizations still could take a lesson from the second item on HuffPost‘s list:

“2. Do research and include links to back it up. Whether you are referencing a quote, statistic, or specific event, you should include a link that supports your statement. If you’re not sure, it’s better to lean on the cautious side. More links enhance the piece and let readers know where you’re coming from.”

It amazes me how often I still see mainstream news stories which completely lack links, or which ghettoize links in a box in a sidebar or at the bottom of the story…

In online media, links enhance credibility and invite engagement. Yet many (perhaps most) major news organizations (including the Associated Press, Wall St. Journal, and USA Today) still include few or no outbound links to sources or context from their stories.

I know from speaking to many, many journalists that in some news organizations, outdated print- or broadcast-focused content management systems make it cumbersome for reporters to add links to stories. In other cases, reporters either don’t know how to add links, or don’t bother to do so. And in a few cases, editors still actively discourage reporters from adding links to stories due to mistaken ideas about what drives online traffic and demonstrates value to readers.

Look at this from the perspective of the community you’re trying to engage online: Dead ends are bad news on the internet. A story without source or context links (especially obvious ones) may appear suspect, as if the news org hopes to discourage independent followup. Yes, it’s a good idea to link to your own related stories — but if you only link to your own news from your own news, you risk looking like an echo chamber. The more value you offer (which includes useful external links), the more likely it is that your online news will attract repeat traffic, inbound links, and personal referrals.

Of course, links are not everything. It’s true that original research (including interviewing) still matters in journalism. It’s also true that not every fact reported has an online link for reference. That said, much (perhaps most) of the information and context that journalists gather and assemble into most stories does indeed have some sort of primary online reference.

Avoiding those links implies hubris (the impression that the news organization is pretending to be the original source/gatherer of all the information presented), laziness (the news org couldn’t be bothered to link), or cluelessness (the news org doesn’t recognize the value of links).

Also, when linking to sources of context, quality counts. I’d have preferred it if HuffPost had stated a preference for links to primary sources, and qualification for any link that is not a primary source. But still — when soliciting news and reporting from amateur journalists, this list is an adequate starting point.

(NOTE: I originally published another version of this article in Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

lacrime

LAPDcrimemaps.org has some recently revealed geodata flaws.

Crime maps are one of the most popular and (in urban areas) ubiquitous types of geo-enabled local news — and they’re a staple of the Knight News Challenge-funded project Everyblock. This data comes from local police departments — but how reliable is it?

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported a problem with the Los Angeles Police Department’s online crime map, launched three years ago…

“LAPDcrimemaps.org is offered to the public as a way to track crimes near specific addresses in the city of Los Angeles. Most of the time that process worked fine. But when it failed, crimes were often shown miles from where they actually occurred.

“Unable to parse the intersection of Paloma Street and Adams Boulevard, for instance, the computer used a default point for Los Angeles, roughly 1st and Spring streets. Mistakes could have the effect of masking real crime spikes as well as creating false ones.”

Apparently the LAPD wast not aware of the error until alerted by the Times…

LAPD spokeswoman Mary Grady told the Times that “the department will work with its contractor to make the map as accurate as current technology allows.”

Also, the Times reported: “Alerted to the findings, Lightray Productions, the contractor that designed the LAPD site at a cost of at least $362,000, has promised to fix the problems. …One reason the errors were not caught earlier may be that the LAPD site retains crimes for only six months and allows viewers to see only a seven-day period at a time. The presentation makes some trends, such as the large accumulation of crimes mapped at Civic Center, more difficult to spot.”

Distorted or erroneous geodata, especially from official sources like police departments, can have ripple effects. In this case the LAPD crime data was automatically pulled into, and displayed by, Everyblock — an experimental project funded by the Knight News Challenge. (UPDATE: Everyblock has since implemented some corrective measures to spot and fix source geodata problems in its crime maps.)

In the All Points Blog from Directions Magazine, Adena Schutzberg noted:

“While the Times article highlights some key points about the process of geocoding and why the error was not found sooner (the app only shows data back a week, making such spikes less obvious) it missed out on some other points including:

• Different applications use different geocoding algorithms.
• Different applications use different data against which to geocode.
• Sharing raw data (vs. maps) can help identify such errors.

Schutzberg concluded: “My main question is this: Everyblock took the same data feed for its L.A. maps, and it seems, ended up with same inaccuracies. Is that because they use the same geocoding and data against which to geocode? That’s not clear from the Times article.”

If your news organization is using geodata to create interactive online features, you might want to consider ways to double-check for possible accuracy issues, perhaps by checking the results yielded by a different tool set to see if and how it handled the data differently.

(NOTE: I originally published a slightly different version of this article in Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

For example, see Inquisitr.com: Indian Government trying to block Twitter as Terrorists may be reading it.

Rumors — even fairly innocuous ones — really bug me. Mainly because they’re so easy to prevent!

I’m trying to track this particular rumor down, but haven’t been able to confirm anything yet. At this point I’m skeptical of this claim. Here’s what I’ve found so far…

Newstrack India reports:

“[Yesterday] evening, there were suddenly a lot of ‘tweets’ reporting that the Indian government had asked that there should not be online updates of military operations against the holed-up terrorists, citing a BBC news source. But, the BBC actually quoted ‘tweets’, which in fact had no independent confirmation.”

BBC’s timeline of the Mumbai attacks (which is an excellent resource, by the way!) reported at 11:08 GMT:

“Indian government asks for live Twitter updates from Mumbai to cease immediately. ‘ALL LIVE UPDATES – PLEASE STOP TWEETING about #Mumbai police and military operations,’ a tweet says.”

The BBC included no link to that alleged tweet from the Indian government. A simple Twitter search for “please stop tweeting” showed the earliest occurrence of this phrase in connection to the Mumbai attacks came from the MumbaiUpdates account, which appears to be run by a Twitter user named Mark Bao — a high school junior based in Boston, who apparently is not in Mumbai at the moment.

Several hours ago, MumbaiUpdates tweeted: “ALL LIVE UPDATERS – PLEASE STOP TWEETING about #Mumbai police and military operations.”

Prior to that, he tweeted (in chronological order):

1. “Due to military action happening very soon, @mumbaiupdates may have little information to report to protect the rescue operations”
2. “I am not updating on any details about #mumbai operations until futher notice to protect the operatoin”
3. “Indian government is asking that the twitter search page #mumbai be shut down.”
4. “or possible clarification: to just stop live updating about the situation pertaining to #mumbai”

UPDATE: Bao just e-mailed me to let me know that his tweet was not the original report on this event. Here’s what he said:

“The rumour started on via another twitter post that retweeted from another person that was a trusted source IN mumbai. Later, it was confirmed on video that the police wanted live updates of the operations to be stopped, though they did not mention the hashtag #Mumbai, though they asked media outlets to stop reporting live.

“The purpose of [the MumbaiUpdates] stream was to disseminate info from the CNN-IBN, NDTV and those twittering from Mumbai. With any news reporting and re-reporting it’s possible errors got in the way. I’m sorry if it caused any confusion.

“If anything, even if NDTV and CNN-IBN were still reporting, it is best practice, and I think justified, to stop tweeting and disseminate more information on the operation that could be spread and could be useful to those that we don’t want to let know the info.”

Also, on Twitter he wrote:

“It was confirmed by Mumbai police on video that they don’t want live updates. Don’t think they mentioned Twitter but it is possible that they did. If not, then that is the rumour that evolved, yet still good practice.”

I’m really glad that Bao elaborated on this, and I’d like to say that I think he did a good job with quickly starting the MumbaiUpdates account to aggregate information on the attacks in India.

Parsing out Bao’s response, it looks like we still don’t know the exact source of this rumor’s first report, but apparently it might have come from a Twitter user in Mumbai. He also said it was “confirmed by video” — but we don’t know where that video was, whether that confirmation was an on-camera statement by police, whether someone was relaying on video information they’d gotten first-hand from the police, or whether someone was simply repeating an unsourced rumor on video.

If you have any further information on this (especially specific links, cites, video clips, etc.), please leave that information in a comment to this post.

TAKEAWAY LESSONS

Media is increasingly unmediated. People are communicating directly, on a global level. We don’t all have to be journalists — but we’d all be better off by adopting stronger media-literacy skills.

Specifically, when you hear something that sounds surprising or important, CHECK OR ASK FOR THE PRIMARY SOURCE before you share the news. It’s not hard to do, and it’s a crucial step.

If something just sounds like common sense (like, “Hey, tweeting details of police movements here might endanger police and hostages, so don’t do that!”), there’s no need to appeal to authority (i.e., saying the police said so) to make people listen. A true common-sense message stands on its own — and in social media like Twitter, it could  carry more credibility as a peer recommendation than if positioned vaguely as an order from “above.”

In this case, many, many well-meaning Twitter users simply repeated the alleged government/police request as if it were established fact. This could cause ripple effects in future interactions between the Indian police and the public (in person and online). There’s a power dynamic in play here that deserves attention and care.

Of course, if an important primary source (like a government official) does offer crucial or interesting information, attribute it clearly. Just a like when professional journalists rely on source documents or press releases, transparency counts! It doesn’t take much time to include a link in your tweet, or just say you heard it firsthand.

Rumors and misinformation, even if well-meant, don’t help. In this case, what if the Indian government made no such request regarding Twitter? What if this call for social media restraint actually arose from concerned Twitter users? Actually, that might be far more interesting than a governmental request.

Imagine the precedent that a true government or police request regarding live tweeting might set for possible future police policy or requests during other events, such as political demonstrations, natural disasters, or a food riot.

Finally, if there was a police or government request, it may have had nothing to do with social media. It’s possible that any official move to get people to stop tweeting details of police/military location and actions, or victims’ locations and circumstances may have actually been a side effect of incautious TV coverage. Many people in India and around the world were watching network TV coverage (especially NDTV and IBN) and tweeting what they saw.

I think in this case it would be useful to know whether the police were mainly requesting cooperation from TV news organizations, or from individuals with cell phones. If the latter, that might mark an interesting turning point in the intersection of government, public safety, and free speech.

——————

NOTE: The original version of this post included the following information about my initial assessment of the situation and attempt to get clarification:

So far I can tell, the source for this alleged request by the Indian government is someone based in the U.S. who is monitoring the situation by remote online. He did not cite or link to a primary source for his allegation. It’s unknown whether he got this news firsthand, is repeating what he heard secondhand, or simply made it up. (I’m not saying he would fabricate that info; I’m just saying it’s possible that he could have done so — and that possibility needs to be ruled out before making this news worthy of repeating as fact.) On that basis, I personally would not repeat this rumor as fact.

That’s why, just now I asked Bao about his source: “@mumbaiupdates: What’s the source of your info that Indian government was seeking to curtail tweeting about #mumbai? Link or cite, please?”

UPDATE: I just received this response from Bao:

MumbaiUpdates: “@agahran ~14 hours ago police were asking that the live updates (incl from media) stop. not sure if it is still in effect.”

…Which really doesn’t answer my question. So I just asked for clarification:

@mumbaiupdates My question is, did you get that info 1st-hand? If not, what’s yr source? Also, did the police specifically mention Twitter?

…Soon after Bao transmitted his “PLEASE STOP TWEETING” request, he noted via MumbaiUpdates:

• “Requesting that if live updates are stopped, that when operations are happening, that NDTV and CNN/IBN stop broadcast also. #Mumbai”
• “This is exactly what #Mumbai doesn’t need: a certain tv station following the configuration of the police. That’s what I’m getting at.”
• “SUCCESS – the NDTV website is no longer broadcasting live video from the #Mumbai front. Thank you NDTV.”
• “TV MEDIA, BE RESPONSIBLE. RT @MumbaiAttacks CNN-IBN just gave out a room number from a guest that called them. What are they thinking?”
• “If in #Mumbai pls call +91-120-4341818, or if anywhere email editor@ibnlive.com to tell to stop broadcstng operations info.”

(Thanks to David Sasaki of Global Voices Online for the tip.)

Even the best journalists and editors sometimes make mistakes. Or sometimes new information surfaces that proves old stories — even very old stories — wrong, or at least casts them in a vastly different light. What’s a responsible news organization to do, especially when those old stories become more findable online?

On Aug. 28, Salon.com co-founder Scott Rosenberg posted a thoughtful response to a Aug. 26 column by New York Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt: When Bad News Follows You.

In a nutshell, the Times recently implemented a search optimization strategy that increased traffic to its site — especially to its voluminous archives. This meant that stories from decades past suddenly appeared quite prominently in current search-engine results. The Times charges non-subscribers to access archived stories.

Hoyt wrote: “People are coming forward at the rate of roughly one a day to complain that they are being embarrassed, are worried about losing or not getting jobs, or may be losing customers because of the sudden prominence of old news articles that contain errors or were never followed up.”

“…Most people who complain want the articles removed from the archive. Until recently, The Times’s response has always been the same: There’s nothing we can do. Removing anything from the historical record would be, in the words of Craig Whitney, the assistant managing editor in charge of maintaining Times standards, ‘like airbrushing Trotsky out of the Kremlin picture.’”

Hoyt’s column offered no options for redress. He didn’t suggest that the Times might start researching more disputed stories or posting more follow-up stories. Nor did he suggest that the Times might directly link archived stories to follow-ups.

Rosenberg asserts that the Times has an obligation to offer redress. Personally, I agree. Plus, I’ve got an idea of how they (or any news org) could do it — and maybe even make some money in the process…

According to Rosenberg, “The Times’s success at boosting the value of its archival content …has had the unintended consequence of unearthing every unfixed error and reopening the argument over every disputed story in the paper’s past. …If the Times is truly the ‘paper of record’ that it has always positioned itself as, and its archives deserve high Google rank by virtue of their unimpeachability, then the paper needs to divert some of the cash it will take in thanks to that rank and fund an operation to look into reader complaints about old articles.”

I think Rosenberg makes a good point. Journalism isn’t just like any other business. We have an obligation to accuracy — and not just today’s accuracy.

One of the great treasures of news organizations is their role as keepers of the past. They provide continuity and context for communities. That, in large measure, is why so many people trust mainstream news organizations. Trust is, after all, the foundation of the news business model. It seems to me that refusing to correct or update the historical record directly undermines that trust — and thus, the news business.

Understandably, resources for this kind of effort are finite at any news organization, no matter how wealthy. And once a news org starts revisiting a few old stories, the floodgates will open and more complaints and disputes will pour in. What to do?

Blogger Brian Slesinsky suggested in a comment to Rosenberg, “A quick fix would be to put a disclaimer at the top of the article, Wikipedia-style: ‘Some of the facts in this article have been disputed…’”

That got me thinking: maybe what’s warranted is a moderated corrections wiki.

Picture this: The kind of disclaimer notice Slesinsky proposed could appear on the story and link to a wiki page for that story. There, the original text of the story would appear, and disputed or incorrect portions would be visibly highlighted. Each highlighted section would link to a sub-page where the dispute or error would be discussed and/or corrected — including direct responses from involved people or anyone with more information.

This corrections wiki wouldn’t be a free-for-all, of course. In order to weed out frivolous complaints, participants would have to provide verifiable information about who they are (including contact info, which could be kept private at the news org’s discretion), their connection to the story (if any), and a verifiable source for the facts they assert (including contacts, citations, or files, which could be kept private).

Contributions to that wiki would have to be moderated, to keep out libelous claims, spammers, etc. This would be an expense for the news org, but it might be worth it. The payoff is potentially huge.

A news organization that offers such comprehensive public redress would demonstrate its commitment to accuracy and fairness as well as respect for the voice of its community. This would likely yield significant loyalty — the ultimate cash cow and raison d’être of any news org. Also, those wiki pages could also further enhance the news org’s search visibility (read: site traffic). And of course, you can serve ads on all those wiki pages.

There’s obviously a huge public demand for updates to old news stories. If news orgs don’t meet this demand, someone else undoubtedly will. In another comment to Rosenberg, Tidbits contributer Tish Grier noted: “If no one’s willing to pony up the money for the necessary staff to do this, then the new the Google News comments feature may end up making Google the ‘paper of record’ because of its quicker correction rate.”

Seems to me that if news organizations want to complain about how Google’s eating their lunch, they shouldn’t keep handing it to Google on a platter.

(NOTE: I originally wrote this for Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits, which is mainly read by pro journalists. I’m cross-posting it here because I think Contentious readers might find it interesting as well.)